hi there it's asiya do you forget words when you speak english stumble and hesitate
for me speaking was the most difficult skill to master and the first time i took my ielts i got
the lowest score in ielts speaking so today i'd like to share with you seven ways to practice
to speak english more fluently and achieve a higher score before we start let me remind you
that you can still take part in the draw for a chance to win my ielts writing and
speaking courses watch the video from last week to take part and now let's get started
let me begin by explaining why speaking english or any other foreign language is so difficult
you might have heard me talking about active and passive language skills before
listening and reading are passive skills you simply understand information
writing and speaking are active skills you actively produce something yourself
and in this sense speaking a language is quite similar to playing a musical instrument
you may know the notes you may enjoy the music you hear but you
only be able to play the tune yourself well if you practice a lot
so english words are like music notes just knowing words is not enough to speak
you actually need to speak in order to be able to quickly connect those words into correct sentences
here is how you can practice your speaking skills number one automate complex grammatical points or
phrases for example you may know the present perfect continuous tense i've been living in
london for 10 years it would be great in ielts speaking but do you actually use it when you speak
if you can't make the sentence quickly without thinking and you try to say it you will have
to stop and think and hesitate and so you need to practice think of several sentences where
you could use this tense here are mine i've been living in london for 10 years i've been
learning english for ages i've been playing tennis since school i've been waiting for half an hour
i've been thinking about you write them down and keep on repeating your sentences aloud until they
come out automatically without any mental effort at all once you reach this stage you easily use
these sentences or very similar sentences in your conversations or in your ielts exam
with time you will learn how to apply the present perfect continuous tense to any sentence and this
way you can master any grammatical point or any phrase or expression the key lies in repetition
the next method is called listen and repeat find a native speaker who speaks clearly with
the accent you want to acquire british canadian australian play their video listen to one phrase
pause the video and repeat this phrase and repeat it as many times as you need to get
closer to the way they say it listen to the next phrase repeat and so on i used bbc learning
english channel for this purpose because all the presenters there articulate really well and there
are a lot of short videos which are perfect for our purpose this technique can help you develop
your intonations and manner of speaking that will make you sound more fluent at the same time
you will learn phrases and expressions that you need to speak naturally this technique is even
more effective if you don't use subtitles and instead memorize each phrase you need to repeat
next find a speaking partner speaking english with a friend is a great way to practice
when i just arrived in london i really felt that i needed to improve my speaking sap back then i
lived with a friend and we tried to speak only in english to make the rules stick we bought a
piggy bank and every time we said something in russian we'd put a one pound coin into the bank
we lived on a student budget and losing money to the piggy bank motivated us a lot so think
maybe you have a friend who could be convinced to speak english if you're preparing for your ielts
exam and would like to find a speaking partner go to our telegram channel and search for the hashtag
ft2 i'll create a post where you can connect in the comments and then chat on telegram if you can
incorporate private lessons with a native speaking teacher into your practice routine
you'll be able to hear how they speak you can get feedback on what you do right and what you
should do to improve and you can take your lessons online with cambly the sponsor of today's video
it's an online learning platform where you can book lessons with native speaking teachers at
any time that suits you with cambly you can choose a teacher you like or book lessons with different
teachers to get used to a variety of accents and also to get feedback from different people
and you can suggest your own topic for the lesson or take their ielts speaking lessons or even a
mock speaking test lessons start from just 15 minutes a day twice a week and even these short
lessons bring a lot of value at the moment there is a very generous offer available you can take
one 15 minute class for free and if you like it subscribe using the link in the description to get
an extra discount you save the most if you take a 12 month plan and if you change your mind you can
still cancel your subscription and get a refund i encourage you to take this free lesson while
it's available all the links are in the video description box below and now let's continue
make a plan the next method will help you learn to speak english at length that's something you need
to do in part 2 of the ielts speaking exam where you need to speak on a given topic for 2 minutes
during your exam you only have one minute to prepare but while you're practicing take
more time choose a topic and think about what you want to say and make yourself a plan then start
speaking following your plan this way you can eliminate the necessity to think about
what you wanna say and concentrate on how you say it give your talk the first time you find it a bit
easier to speak this way and then give it again and you notice that you speak even more fluently
this is a great confidence booster it will show you that if the content is familiar to you you
can speak much better what's more the results of such practice will be there even weeks later
and if you get a similar topic you'll be able to speak more confidently the next tip is read aloud
if you don't speak english enough you may notice that you struggle to pronounce everything
correctly and when you stumble it really hurts your confidence and of course ielts examiners
pay attention to your pronunciation too an easy way to improve it is to read aloud you can read a
newspaper article or even a dictionary article for example if you notice that you find a certain word
hard to pronounce such as clothes or maths you can go to oxford learners dictionary find the word and
read aloud the definitions and all the examples if you do it right you notice that the muscles around
your mouth feel tired at the end and whatever is difficult for you to pronounce in english
say it a certain number of times and it gets easy an extra benefit of reading the dictionary
is that you also memorize the phrases you need to use this word in sentences okay
let's continue start thinking in english while you're learning the language
until a certain moment you think in your own language and translate in your head and this
makes you speak slowly and sound unnatural because you use expressions from your own language and
then try to translate them into english to become fluent you need to learn how to think in english
today i think in english more often than in russian i plan my day in english i take
notes in english i google information in english and i encourage you to do the same
thinking in english helps your brain develop all those connections between words and as a result
you'll be able to speak more fluently i know that the ielts exam may seem like a big hurdle at the
moment but on the scale of your life it's just a tiny exam but speaking english is a skill that
can change your whole life so put all your effort into it and you won't regret it there is no magic
appeal for better speaking basically the best way to speak better is to speak so start doing it now
and do it consistently practicing just 15 minutes a day can bring great results if you do it
every day join cambly to practice your english with a native speaking teacher and join our
telegram channel to find a speaking partner and more materials for your ielts preparation
and if you watch this video on the screen you can win our ielts writing and speaking courses for
free thank you for being with me today good luck with your preparation and your exam
bye